Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to all the saints who are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ: As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will: Unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he hath graced us in his beloved son. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which hath superabounded in us in all wisdom and prudence, that he might make known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, to re-establish all things in Christ, that are in heaven and on earth, in him. In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will. That we may be unto the praise of his glory, we who before hoped in Christ: In whom you also, after you had heard the word of truth, (the gospel of your salvation;) in whom also believing, you were signed with the holy Spirit of promise, Who is the pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of acquisition, unto the praise of his glory. Wherefore I also, hearing of your faith that is in the Lord Jesus, and of your love towards all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making commemoration of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation, in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what the hope is of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us, who believe according to the operation of the might of his power, which he wrought in Christ, raising him up from the dead, and setting him on his right hand in the heavenly places. Above all principality, and power, and virtue, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And he hath subjected all things under his feet, and hath made him head over all the church, which is his body, and the fulness of him who is filled all in all.
(Ephesians Chapter 1)
The Final End of the Universe
The final end of the universe formally is the glory of God, materially it is that by which creation most perfectly glorifies God.
All creation glorifies God by in some way reflecting his goodness / beauty / perfection.
But intellectual creatures (angels and humans) can glorify God on a unique and more perfect way - by attaining Him in some way.
“A state made perfect by the aggregation of all good things.” ~ Boethius’s definition of beatitude (de Consol. iv).
“Nothing else is understood to be meant by the term beatitude than the perfect good of an intellectual nature.” ~ St Thomas, ST Ia Q.26 a.1.
As St Irenaeus said: Gloria Dei est vivens homo. "The Glory of God is man living" or as it is often rendered, "fully alive."
Man's Final End
The object of the will is the good. As well as good in general, creatures with a will necessarily desire good under the ratio of final end. This has some notion of completeness due to the fact that an intellect can conceive universal good, rather than just particular goods. This is eudaimonia in the broadest sense.
Aristotle first describes eudaimonia as ‘living well and acting well’ (NE 1.4). This is strikingly general. It is so general because Aristotle is talking about what all men must agree about the final end. ‘Well’ is as general as good because it is its adverbial form. But men do not agree on what living well and acting well actually entails. They do not agree on what it is is (ti estin).
Because ‘living well and doing well’ are so broad, nothing that we can do or wish to do can escape this. Any act we do, whether good or bad, self-centred or ordered towards a higher good, must be conceived as a ‘good act’ for us to do. It must be considered under the formality of acting well.
When you do not have something and a strong desire is enkindled for it, it is possible for you to identify it as ‘living well and doing well’ / eudaimonia or at least as a part of that. For example, Aristotle says that one and the same person might identify it with health when he is sick or wealth when he is poor (NE 1.4).
Aristotle in fact says that eudaimonia is the most choiceworthy of all things because it is not just one among them (NE 1.7). It is the all-encompassing good, the complete good, that corresponds to the intellect’s knowledge of universal good. An irrational animal might be satisfied with just a particular good but man, insofar as he acts as man, can only will a particular good if he considers it part of the universal good, a useful means to attaining that which corresponds to the universal good, or the universal good itself, or at least that in which it is found.
Some particular goods are indeed choiceworthy for their own sakes because they are intrinsically good in themselves. Even if nothing further resulted from them, they would be choiceworthy (NE 1.7). They are in some way perfect in themselves. However, they are not the most perfect. Only the most perfect can fully correspond to ‘living well and doing well.’ Perfect means complete, so the most perfect would also be most complete and self-sufficient. It would either transcend or entail other goods. Aristotle says that what is the best appears to be something perfect or complete. “As a result, if there is some one thing that is perfect [or substitute ‘complete’] in itself, this would be what is being sought, and if there are several, then the most perfect of these. We say that what is sought out for itself is more perfect than what is sought or in account of something else, and that what is never chosen on account of something else is more perfect than those things chosen both for themselves and on account of this [further end]. The simply / unqualifiedly perfect thing, then, is that which is always chosen for itself and never on account of something else. Eudaimonia above all seems to be of this character, for we always choose it on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet honour, pleasure, understanding, and every virtue we choose on their own account - for even if nothing resulted from them, we would still choose each of them - but we choose them also for the sake of eudaimonia, because we suppose that, through them, we will be ‘eudaimon.’ But nobody chooses eudaimonia for the sake of these things, or more generally, on account of anything else. The same thing appears to result also on the basis of self-sufficiency, for the perfect good is held to be self-sufficient...As for the self-sufficient, we posit it as that which by itself makes life choiceworthy and in need of nothing, and such is what we suppose eudaimonia to be. Further, eudaimonia is the most choiceworthy of all things because it is not just one of them...So eudaimonia appears to be something perfect and self-sufficient, if being an end of our actions. But perhaps saying that ‘eudaimonia is best’ is something manifestly agreed on, whereas what it is still needs to be said more distinctly” (NE 1.7).
Eudaimonia is the most complete and most comprehensive good for man which either transcends or entails all other good things. The best things that are intrinsically good for man will either be the essence of eudaimonia or will be entailed by eudaimonia.
Aristotle goes on to say that eudaimonia must be what is good for man as man, therefore perfective of his rational nature. He also says how it must primarily reside in an activity and that this activity must be in accord with virtue and reason, “and if there are several virtues, then in accord with the best and most complete / perfect one.”
Although man can err, in reality eudaimonia objectively consists in the good activities of the soul. “Now although the good things have been distributed in a threefold manner - both those goods said to be external, on the one hand, and those pertaining to the soul and to the body, on the other - we say that those pertaining tot the soul are the most authoritative and especially good. And we posit as those ‘goods pertaining to the soul,’ the soul’s actions and activities...It would be correct too to say that certain actions and activities are the end, for in this way the end belongs among the goods related to soul...” (NE 1.8).
Man’s perfection consists in an act. It consists in action / activity (praxis / energeia). True eudaimonia lies in energeiai and praxeis of the soul. It is something active not passive.
‘Living and doing well’ is always the first principle of the practical intellect, in which the noble soul’s speculative intellect sees fundamentally the glory of God, moved by the will which loves God above all things for His own sake.
Love and Desire
If Aristotle’s account of morality is imperfect, it is largely because he focuses on desire rather than love (by which I mean what I will call the 'love of complacency'). This is, to a large extent, because he is focused on Ethics as a practical science directed towards action. However, love is more basic than desire. This is even the case in the sensible order. In his early days, commenting on the Sentences, St Thomas thought that the passion of desire (desiderium) was prior to the passion of love (amor). However, he changed his view. In his mature period of thought, he taught that amor was prior to desiderium. The passion of amor is sort of appetitive complacency in a good perceived. The rational appetite (voluntas) does not have the sensible passions, but we can consider acts of the rational appetite or will as corresponding to certain passions. For example, this is how St Thomas explains how pride, which is irascible, is present in the will of the immaterial fallen angels (who don't have sensible passions). It seems that when it comes to love, the passion of amor corresponds to the will’s love of complacency, the passion of desiderium corresponds to the will’s loves of concupiscence and benevolence, and the passion of gaudium corresponds to the will’s spiritual delight in a good possessed.
The Good
‘The good is that which all things desire’ (NE 1.1) This is a definition of a cause from an effect. We desire things because they are good. They are not good because we desire them. Similarly, truth is the conformity of the mind with reality, not of reality with the mind á la Kant.
In fact this is clearly implied by Aristotle. He says that people have rightly declared that the good is that at which all things aim precisely because “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action, is held to aim at some good” (NE 1.1)
Furthermore, this is confirmed by St Thomas in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (Lectio I, 9):
We should bear in mind that good is enumerated among the primary entities to such a degree—according to the Platonists—that good is prior to being. But, in reality, good is convertible with being. Now primary things cannot be understood by anything anterior to them, but by something consequent, as causes are understood through their proper effects. But since good properly is the moving principle of the appetite, good is described as movement of the appetite, just as motive power is usually manifested through motion. For this reason he says that the philosophers have rightly declared that good is what all desire.
It would be even more perfect to say that ‘the good is that which all things love.’ This is still a definition of cause from effect. However, it is more precise. Something loved is desired only if it is absent, and delighted in when it is present. Love encompasses both and also a certain kind of love, the love of complacency, which is prior to both and is the necessary root of both. As St Thomas says in his reply to objection 1 on whether God has will in the Prima Pars:
Will in us belongs to the appetitive part, which, although named from appetite, has not for its only act the seeking what it does not possess; but also the loving and the delighting in what it does possess. In this respect will is said to be in God, as having always good which is its object, since, as already said, it is not distinct from His essence.
Everything desires to be God, in a certain sense
Good cannot be logically defined because it is a transcendental. To penetrate the meaning of goodness beyond what the term immediately signifies pertains to theology. God is goodness itself. Infinite goodness and infinite perfection. Despite an admixture of some erroneous views, when Plato was talking about the 'Form of the Good' in the Republic and 'Beauty itself' in the Symposium, he was getting towards God. The good is that which all things aim at because everything naturally desires to be God in some way (this is a constant refrain of Aristotle throughout his works). God is Pure Act. And everything desires the most perfect act of which it’s nature is capable. A plant teleologically 'wishes' to be the best plant it can be. In Aristotle’s cosmology, the heavenly spheres rotate in perfect circles because they have a directedness towards imitating the motionless act of the Prime Mover according to their own limitations (the idea is that any point in a circle is as much the beginning and end as any other point). In the sublunary realm, water and air imitate the heavenly spheres in an even more imperfect way. They both have rectilinear motions (water down and air up). But together, their motions form a weather cycle which imitates more imperfectly the circular motion of the heavenly spheres. Living things reproduce in order that the species may live on, even if no single individual will. Therefore, as a species, the living things 'wish' to imitate the immortality of the Prime Mover. Human beings have nous or intellect. Therefore, they can imitate the very action of the Prime Mover (‘thought thinking itself’). The beautiful teleology and metaphysics of Aristotle are key to understanding more deeply the rest of his thought.
Man's Perfection
We might also define - or, we might say, describe - goodness as ‘perfection which is loveable.’
The lovability of goodness is not because it factually happens to be loved but because it is intrinsically worthy of love. This is because, again, we love things because they are good, rather than them being good because we love them.
For a man to desire for himself the good and noble things of the soul is a good form of love of self (see Nic Eth. IX). It is good to wish to be a good, just, noble, and perfect person. Yet, the noble goods (bona honesta) which pertain to the soul are primarily loved in themselves because of their intrinsic goodness. This is possible because the intellect and will are ecstatic by nature. They go out of themselves towards the known and the loved. Nevertheless, to love the intrinsic spiritual beauty of justice, purity etc. and not to wish to be just, pure etc. is absurd.
Man must in some way love himself. For either a man is morally disordered or morally upright. If he is morally disordered, this is because he has a corrupt love of self. If he is morally upright, this entails a good love of self because he wishes to be good and perfect. If he did not wish to be good and perfect, he would not be morally upright. If he loves goodness and perfection in themselves, then he must desire to partake in goodness and perfection. For example, if he loves justice, he must want himself to be just. This is why, indeed, if one loves God in and of Himself, it naturally follows that one desires to possess God in the manner which a man can.
It belongs to the objective perfection of man to love God above his own perfection.
But man cannot love God without loving his own perfection, for a) God wills his perfection, b) his perfection glorifies God and, c) given that the possession of God is the true perfection of man, desiring to possess God naturally follows from loving God in Himself and for His own sake, as explained above. In fact these three are more different angles of a profound truth than separate reasons. God wills man’s perfection because it glorifies Him and he implants in the nature of man a desire to possess that which the man loves for its own sake, which ontologically reflects God’s necessary possession and delight in Himself, whom he necessarily loves for His own infinitely good sake. ‘Possession’ (indeed like all other words said of God) is of course is said analogically here because God not merely has Himself but is Himself. Furthermore, He does not merely perform an act of loving Himself but He Himself is that infinite love, which is one with that infinite goodness, which is one with that infinite ‘possession’ of Himself or rather His being God.
To desire one’s perfection is to desire a rightly desirable bonum honestum reflecting, attaining, and glorifying Him who is the infinite and subsistent bonum honestum - goodness itself, beauty itself, nobility itself, perfection itself - and willed, loved, and desired by Him.
In fact, the height of man's perfection, at least in this life, is that very love whereby he loves God ex toto corde supremely above all things, for His own sake, because of His infinite intrinsic goodness. It is by this that he is most united to God in this life. Unlike any knowledge of God in this life, this love reaches God immediately.
All habits are ordained to their acts. There is both a habit and an act of Charity. Contrary to an error of the Quietists, the act of Charity is more perfect, because the habit is for the sake of the act.
If the act of Charity is an intrinsically good act, then clearly it falls under ‘living well and doing well’, the arena in which all man’s practical desires fall. This does not mean that man loves himself more than Whom he loves by that very act of Charity. ‘Living well and doing well’ does not just encompass selfish love, unless we admit the error that nature is curved in on itself. But it does mean that any truly good thing we do will objectively be perfective of us.
Man’s perfection in the next life will include this love which remains substantially the same. However in this life, this love will no longer be mutable, but necessary and superfree, because this beatific love follows necessarily from the beatific vision. Also, while any knowledge of God by faith and reason did not attain God immediately, the beatific vision attains God immediately. Therefore man will both know and love God immediately as He is in Himself.
Because man will necessarily love God wholeheartedly and for His own sake upon seeing immediately His infinite goodness and beauty, Thomists hold that the beatific vision is what formally and essentially constitutes beatitude in the next life inasmuch as it is the principle from which flows the beatific love.
Nature is Not Curved in on Itself
Nature is not curved in on itself a lá Martin Luther and Ayn Rand. It is natural and naturally good for man to love the Common Good over his singular good and to love God above all things.
“The animal prefers ‘naturally’, that is to say, in virtue of the inclination which is in it by nature (ratio indita rebus ab arte divina), the good of its species to its singular good. ‘Every singular naturally loves the good of its species more than its singular good.’ [Ia, q. 60, a. 5, ad 1]. That is because the good of the species is a greater good for the singular than its singular good. Therefore, this is not a species which abstracts from individuals and desires its proper good against the natural desire of the individual; it is the singular itself which, by nature, desires the good of the species rather than its singular good. This desire for the common good is in the singular itself.” ~ Charles de Koninck
In fact, Aristotle explicitly introduces eudaimonia as a common good in Nichomachean Ethics 1.4. This does not mean that an individual man necessarily desires it as a common good, for he can be corrupt and selfish, but that, in itself, eudaimonia is a common good, or rather the Common Good of man. A common good is infinitely communicable without being diminished. But, as the result of a corrupt will and defective love, man can erroneously identify his eudaimonia with a private good.
Aristotle also says: “the good of the individual by himself is certainly desirable enough, but that of a nation and of cities is nobler and more divine” (NE 1.2).
Benevolence and Friendship
Man can love others with a love of benevolence not just concupiscence.
Benevolence or goodwill is not the same as friendship. Seeing some good in someone, one can have benevolence towards that person. But while he says that benevolence is the beginning of friendship, Aristotle says that friendship is much more because it involves a certain unity and intimacy, achieved by living life together. Nevertheless, the more broad 'love of benevolence' is often described just as 'the love of friendship' (amor amicitiae), when it is distinguished from 'the love of concupiscence' (amor concupiscentiae).
From ST Ia IIae Q. 26 a. 4:
We are said to love certain things, because we desire them: thus "a man is said to love wine, on account of its sweetness which he desires"; as stated in Topic. ii, 3. But we have no friendship for wine and suchlike things, as stated in Ethic. viii, 2. Therefore love of concupiscence is distinct from love of friendship.
As the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 4), "to love is to wish good to someone." Hence the movement of love has a twofold tendency: towards the good which a man wishes to someone (to himself or to another) and towards that to which he wishes some good. Accordingly, man has love of concupiscence towards the good that he wishes to another, and love of friendship towards him to whom he wishes good.
Now the members of this division are related as primary and secondary: since that which is loved with the love of friendship is loved simply and for itself; whereas that which is loved with the love of concupiscence, is loved, not simply and for itself, but for something else. For just as that which has existence, is a being simply, while that which exists in another is a relative being; so, because good is convertible with being, the good, which itself has goodness, is good simply; but that which is another's good, is a relative good. Consequently the love with which a thing is loved, that it may have some good, is love simply; while the love, with which a thing is loved, that it may be another's good, is relative love.
In perfect friendships, a man loves his friend because he is good and virtuous. This is usually also why we have benevolence towards even people we aren't friends with (for example, if you admire a good person you have seen or heard of, but are not friends with him). In these cases, love of benevolence follows love of complacency. However, God can love even sinners in mortal sin with the love of benevolence because his love of benevolence follows from the love of complacency in His own infinite goodness, while His love of complacency for men only comes about when He has made them good as a result of His love of benevolence. God cannot have a love of complacency in those in mortal sin nor can he have friendship with them. In a state of pure nature, God could have both a love of benevolence and a love of complacency in a rightly ordered man, but not friendship even then. On his side, man could have a love of complacency and a love of benevolence for God (above all things), but not yet true friendship. This is because there would still be a distance that precluded friendship. However, because of supernatural grace, man can enter actual friendship with God.
When we love the good of a friend for his sake, we actually identify his good with our good. This is because of a certain unity. “People also wish for good things for those who are loved, for the sake of the loved ones themselves, not in reference to a passion but in accord with a characteristic. And in loving their friend, they love what is good for themselves, since the good person who becomes a friend becomes a good for the person to whom he is a friend. Each one, then, both loved what is good for himself and repays in equal measure what they wish for the other and what is pleasant” (Aristotle NE 8.5). “Since friendship consists more in loving than in being loved and those who love their friends are praised, loving seems to be a virtue of friends.” (NE 8.8). “The proverb ‘the things of friends are in common’ is correct, since friendship resides in community” (NE 8.9). “For people set down as a friend someone who wishes for and does things that are (or appear to be) good, for the friend’s own sake, to exist and live. This is just what mothers feel towards their children, as do even those who have quarrelled with their friends. Some also set down as a friend someone who goes through life together with another and who chooses the same things as he does, or who shares in sufferings and joys with his friend” (NE 9.4). On the decent person’s relationship with himself: “For this decent person is of like mind with himself and longs for the same things with his whole soul. Indeed, he both wishes for the good things for himself, that is the things that appears such to him, and he does them...And so, because each of these things belongs to the decent person in relation to himself, and because he stands in relation to a friend as he does to himself - for the friend is another self - friendship seems to be a certain one of these qualities and friends, to whom these belong” (ibid).
St Thomas explains how friendship with God is importantly different than friendship with human friends. God is goodness in its totality and we participate in His goodness like parts to a whole. While our love of self is the model of the love of our human friends, our love of friendship with God transcends this. Even naturally, we ought to love God above all things. Friendship with God, however, is supernatural, as said above.
St Thomas emphasises that, since even naturally man is bound to love God above all things, so much more ought he to love Him above all things when he is friends with Him by supernatural charity and the communication of the goods of supernatural grace.
From ST IIa IIae Q.26 a.3:
Whether out of charity, man is bound to love God more than himself?
Objection 1. It would seem that man is not bound, out of charity, to love God more than himself. For the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 8) that "a man's friendly relations with others arise from his friendly relations with himself." Now the cause is stronger than its effect. Therefore man's friendship towards himself is greater than his friendship for anyone else. Therefore he ought to love himself more than God.
Objection 2. Further, one loves a thing in so far as it is one's own good. Now the reason for loving a thing is more loved than the thing itself which is loved for that reason, even as the principles which are the reason for knowing a thing are more known. Therefore man loves himself more than any other good loved by him. Therefore he does not love God more than himself.
Objection 3. Further, a man loves God as much as he loves to enjoy God. But a man loves himself as much as he loves to enjoy God; since this is the highest good a man can wish for himself. Therefore man is not bound, out of charity, to love God more than himself.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 22): "If thou oughtest to love thyself, not for thy own sake, but for the sake of Him in Whom is the rightest end of thy love, let no other man take offense if him also thou lovest for God's sake." Now "the cause of a thing being such is yet more so." Therefore man ought to love God more than himself.
I answer that, The good we receive from God is twofold, the good of nature, and the good of grace. Now the fellowship of natural goods bestowed on us by God is the foundation of natural love, in virtue of which not only man, so long as his nature remains unimpaired, loves God above all things and more than himself, but also every single creature, each in its own way, i.e. either by an intellectual, or by a rational, or by an animal, or at least by a natural love, as stones do, for instance, and other things bereft of knowledge, because each part naturally loves the common good of the whole more than its own particular good. This is evidenced by its operation, since the principal inclination of each part is towards common action conducive to the good of the whole. It may also be seen in civic virtues whereby sometimes the citizens suffer damage even to their own property and persons for the sake of the common good. Wherefore much more is this realised with regard to the friendship of charity which is based on the fellowship of the gifts of grace.
Therefore man ought, out of charity, to love God, Who is the common good of all, more than himself: since beatitude is in God as in the universal and fountain principle of all who are able to have a share of that beatitude.
Reply to Objection 1. The Philosopher is speaking of friendly relations towards another person in whom the good, which is the object of friendship, resides in some restricted way; and not of friendly relations with another in whom the aforesaid good resides in totality.
Reply to Objection 2. The part does indeed love the good of the whole, as becomes a part, not however so as to refer the good of the whole to itself, but rather itself to the good of the whole.
Reply to Objection 3. That a man wishes to enjoy God pertains to that love of God which is love of concupiscence. Now we love God with the love of friendship more than with the love of concupiscence, because the Divine good is greater in itself, than our share of good in enjoying Him. Hence, out of charity, man simply loves God more than himself.
From ST IIa IIae Q.17 a.6:
Now one may adhere to a thing in two ways: first, for its own sake; secondly, because something else is attained thereby. Accordingly charity makes us adhere to God for His own sake, uniting our minds to God by the emotion of love. On the other hand, hope and faith make man adhere to God as to a principle wherefrom certain things accrue to us...Hope makes us tend to God, as to a good to be obtained finally, and as to a helper strong to assist: whereas charity, properly speaking, makes us tend to God, by uniting our affections to Him, so that we live, not for ourselves, but for God.
Hope can prepare for Charity and it can flow from Charity.
When a man attains, by theological Faith, the knowledge that his beatitude / perfection are found in supernatural union with God and attains, by theological Hope, the desire for this end (whereby he merely has a love of concupiscence for God), he is disposed towards the love of friendship with God. God invites Him by grace and, if he responds, he is admitted into love and intimacy with his heavenly lover. He is admitted into that love of friendship which is Charity. Now the man, a true Christian, loves God, his dear friend, for his own sake with a supreme love of complacency and desires every good for Him with a supreme love of benevolence (God already has all good intrinsically, but man can still desire his external glory). He also loves God wholeheartedly and desires to love Him as intensely, fervently, and purely as he can, as befits the infinite and intrinsic goodness of God. Aristotle says that the perfect and complete form of friendship is where the friend is loved on account of his goodness and virtue. When it comes to God, this love of friendship should be all the more intense and devoted because here we are talking about he who is infinite goodness itself.
Hope also flows from Charity. But now it is a living Hope. It is a Hope informed by Charity and is now meritorious. This living and meritorious Hope is necessary if one has Charity. Despair is incompatible with true Charity. As was said above, man cannot love God without loving his own perfection, for God wills his perfection and his perfection glorifies God.
St Thomas writes (ST IIa IIae Q.17 a.8):
Order is twofold. One is the order of generation and of matter, in respect of which the imperfect precedes the perfect: the other is the order of perfection and form, in respect of which the perfect naturally precedes the imperfect. On respect of the first order hope precedes charity: and this is clear from the fact that hope and all movements of the appetite flow from love, as stated above (I-II:27:4; I-II:28:6 ad 2; I-II:40:7) in the treatise on the passions.
Now there is a perfect, and an imperfect love. Perfect love is that whereby a man is loved in himself, as when someone wishes a person some good for his own sake; thus a man loves his friend. Imperfect love is that whereby a man love something, not for its own sake, but that he may obtain that good for himself; thus a man loves what he desires. The first love of God pertains to charity, which adheres to God for His own sake; while hope pertains to the second love, since he that hopes, intends to obtain possession of something for himself.
Hence in the order of generation, hope precedes charity. For just as a man is led to love God, through fear of being punished by Him for his sins, as Augustine states (In primam canon. Joan. Tract. ix), so too, hope leads to charity, in as much as a man through hoping to be rewarded by God, is encouraged to love God and obey His commandments. On the other hand, in the order of perfection charity naturally precedes hope, wherefore, with the advent of charity, hope is made more perfect, because we hope chiefly in our friends. It is in this sense that Ambrose states (Objection 1) that charity flows from hope.
The Bonum Honestum
See IIa IIae Q.145 on honestas. See all references to to kalon in Aristotle. See the article on the three goods (honestum, utile, delectabile) in the Question on goodness in general in the Prima Pars.
Because the first of those is such a magnificent text, I shall give the first three articles in full. They emphasise the intrinsic goodness of the bonum honestum because of its spiritual beauty. (By the way Tully / Tullius is Cicero).
Article 1. Whether honestum is the same as virtue?
Objection 1. It would seem that honestum is not the same as virtue. For Tully says (De Invent. Rhet. ii, 53) that "the honestum is what is desired for its own sake." Now virtue is desired, not for its own sake, but for the sake of felicity, for the Philosopher says (Ethic. i, 9) that "felicity [felicitas translates eudaimonia] is the reward and the end of virtue." Therefore honestum is not the same as virtue.
Objection 2. Further, according to Isidore (Etym. x) "honestas means an honourable state." Now honour is due to many things besides virtue, since "it is praise that is the proper due of virtue" (Ethic. i, 12). Therefore honestas is not the same as virtue.
Objection 3. Further, the "principal part of virtue is the interior choice," as the Philosopher says (Ethic. viii, 13). But honestas seems to pertain rather to exterior conduct, according to 1 Corinthians 14:40, "Let all things be done decently [honeste] and according to order" among you. Therefore honestas is not the same as virtue.
Objection 4. Further, honestas apparently consists in external wealth. According to Sirach 11:14, "good things and evil, life and death [poverty and riches] are from God" [The words in brackets are omitted in the Leonine edition. For riches the Vulgate has 'honestas']. But virtue does not consist in external wealth. Therefore honestas is not the same as virtue.
On the contrary, Tully (De Offic. i, 5; Rhet. ii, 53) divides honestum into the four principal virtues, into which virtue is also divided. Therefore honestum is the same as virtue.
I answer that, As Isidore says (Etym. x) "honestas means an honourable state," wherefore a thing may be said to be honestum through being worthy of honour. Now honour, as stated above (II-II:144:2 ad 2), is due to excellence: and the excellence of a man is gauged chiefly according to his virtue, as stated in Phys. vii, 17. Therefore, properly speaking, honestum refers to the same thing as virtue.
Reply to Objection 1. According to the Philosopher (Ethic. i, 7), of those things that are desired for their own sake, some are desired for their own sake alone, and never for the sake of something else, such as felicity which is the last end; while some are desired, not only for their own sake, inasmuch as they have an aspect of goodness in themselves, even if no further good accrued to us through them, but also for the sake of something else, inasmuch as they are conducive to some more perfect good. It is thus that the virtues are desirable for their own sake: wherefore Tully says (De Invent. Rhet. ii, 52) that "some things allure us by their own force, and attract us by their own worth" (quiddam est quod sua vi nos allicit, et sua dignitate trahit), such as virtue, truth, knowledge. And this suffices to give a thing the character of honestum.
Reply to Objection 2. Some of the things which are honoured besides virtue are more excellent than virtue, namely God and beatitude, and such like things are not so well known to us by experience as virtue which we practice day by day. Hence virtue has a greater claim to the name of honestum. Other things which are beneath virtue are honoured, in so far as they are a help to the practice of virtue, such as rank, power, and riches [Ethic. i, 8. For as the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 3) that these things "are honoured by some people, but in truth it is only the good man who is worthy of honour." Now a man is good in respect of virtue. Wherefore praise is due to virtue in so far as the latter is desirable for the sake of something else, while honour is due to virtue for its own sake: and it is thus that virtue has the character of honestum.
Reply to Objection 3. As we have stated honestum denotes that to which honour is due. Now honour is an attestation to someone's excellence, as stated above (II-II:103:1 and II-II:103:2). But one attests only to what one knows; and the internal choice is not made known save by external actions. Wherefore external conduct has the character of honestum, in so far as it reflects internal rectitude. For this reason honestas consists radically in the internal choice, but its expression lies in the external conduct.
Reply to Objection 4. It is because the excellence of wealth is commonly regarded as making a man deserving of honour, that sometimes the name of honestas is given to external prosperity.
Article 2. Whether the honestum is the same as the beautiful?
Objection 1. It would seem that the honestum is not the same as the beautiful. For the aspect of honestum is derived from the appetite, since the honestum is "what is desirable for its own sake" (quod per se appetitur) [Cicero, De Invent. Rhet. ii, 53. But the beautiful regards rather the faculty of vision to which it is pleasing. Therefore the beautiful is not the same as the honestum.
Objection 2. Further, beauty requires a certain clarity, which is characteristic of glory: whereas the honestum regards honour. Since then honour and glory differ, as stated above (II-II:103:1 ad 3), it seems also that the honestum and the beautiful differ.
Objection 3. Further, honestas is the same as virtue, as stated above (Article 1). But a certain beauty is contrary to virtue, wherefore it is written (Ezekiel 16:15): "Trusting in thy beauty thou playest the harlot because of thy renown." Therefore the honestum is not the same as the beautiful.
On the contrary, The Apostle says (1 Corinthians 12:23-24): "Those that are our uncomely [inhonesta] parts, have more abundant comeliness [honestatem], but our comely [honesta] parts have no need." Now by uncomely parts he means the baser members, and by comely parts the beautiful members. Therefore the honestum and the beautiful are apparently the same.
I answer that, As may be gathered from the words of Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv), beauty or comeliness results from the concurrence of clarity and due proportion. For he states that God is said to be beautiful, as being "the cause of the harmony and clarity of the universe." Hence the beauty of the body consists in a man having his bodily limbs well proportioned, together with a certain clarity of colour. On like manner spiritual beauty consists in a man's conduct or actions being well proportioned in respect of the spiritual clarity of reason. Now this is what is meant by honestum which we have stated (Article 1) to be the same as virtue; and it is virtue that moderates according to reason all that is connected with man. Wherefore "honestum is the same as spiritual beauty." Hence Augustine says (Q83, qu. 30): "By honestas I mean intelligible beauty, which we properly designate as spiritual," (honestatem voco intelligibilem pulchritudinem, quam spiritualem nos proprie dicimus) and further on he adds that "many things are beautiful to the eye, which it would be hardly proper to call honesta."
Reply to Objection 1. The object that moves the appetite is an apprehended good. Now if a thing is perceived to be beautiful as soon as it is apprehended, it is taken to be something becoming and good. Hence Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that "the beautiful and the good are beloved by all." Wherefore the honestum, inasmuch as it implies spiritual beauty, is an object of desire, and for this reason Tully says (De Offic. i, 5): "Thou perceivest the form and the features, so to speak, of honestas; and were it to be seen with the eye, would, as Plato declares, arouse a wondrous love of wisdom."
Reply to Objection 2. As stated above (II-II:103:1 ad 3), glory is the effect of honour: because through being honoured or praised, a person acquires clarity in the eyes of others. Wherefore, just as the same thing makes a man honourable and glorious, so is the same thing honestum and beautiful.
Reply to Objection 3. This argument applies to the beauty of the body: although it might be replied that to be proud of one's honestas is to play the harlot because of one's spiritual beauty, according to Ezekiel 28:17, "Thy heart was lifted up with thy beauty, thou hast lost thy wisdom in thy beauty."
Article 3. Whether the honestum differs from the useful and the pleasant?
Objection 1. It would seem that the honestum does not differ from the useful and the pleasant. For the honestum is "what is desirable for its own sake" [Cicero, De Invent. Rhet. ii, 53. Now pleasure is desired for its own sake, for "it seems ridiculous to ask a man why he wishes to be pleased," as the Philosopher remarks (Ethic. x, 2). Therefore the honestum does not differ from the pleasant.
Objection 2. Further, riches are comprised under the head of useful good: for Tully says (De Invent. Rhet. ii, 52): "There is a thing that attracts the desire not by any force of its own, nor by its very nature, but on account of its fruitfulness and utility": and "that is money." Now riches come under the head of honestas, for it is written (Sirach 11:14): "Poverty and riches [honestas] are from God," and (Sirach 13:2): "He shall take a burden upon him that hath fellowship with one more honourable," i.e. richer, "than himself." Therefore the honestum differs not from the useful.
Objection 3. Further, Tully proves (De Offic. ii, 3) that nothing can be useful unless it be honestum: and Ambrose makes the same statement (De Offic. ii, 6). Therefore the useful differs not from the honestum.
On the contrary, Augustine says (83, qu. 30): "The honestum is that which is desirable for its own sake: the useful implies reference to something else."
I answer that, The honestum concurs in the same subject with the useful and the pleasant, but it differs from them in aspect. For, as stated above (Article 2), a thing is said to be honestum, in so far as it has a certain beauty through being regulated by reason. Now whatever is regulated in accordance with reason is naturally becoming to man. Again, it is natural for a thing to take pleasure in that which is becoming to it. Wherefore the honestum is naturally pleasing to man: and the Philosopher proves this with regard to acts of virtue (Ethic. i, 8). Yet not all that is pleasing is honestum, since a thing may be becoming according to the senses, but not according to reason. A pleasing thing of this kind is beside man's reason which perfects his nature. Even virtue itself, which is essentially honestum, is referred to something else as its end namely felicity. Accordingly the honestum, the useful, and the pleasant concur in the one subject.
Nevertheless they differ in aspect. For a thing is said to be honestum as having a certain excellence deserving of honour on account of its spiritual beauty: while it is said to be pleasing, as bringing rest to desire, and useful, as referred to something else. The pleasant, however, extends to more things than the useful and the honestum: since whatever is useful and honestum is pleasing in some respect, whereas the converse does not hold (Ethic. ii, 3).
Reply to Objection 1. A thing is said to be honestum, if it is desired for its own sake by the rational appetite, which tends to that which is in accordance with reason: while a thing is said to be pleasant if it is desired for its own sake by the sensitive appetite.
Reply to Objection 2. Riches are denominated honestas according of the opinion of the many who honour wealth: or because they are intended to be the instruments of virtuous deeds, as stated above (Article 1, Reply to Objection 2).
Reply to Objection 3. Tully and Ambrose mean to say that nothing incompatible with honestas can be simply and truly useful, since it follows that it is contrary to man's last end, which is a good in accordance with reason; although it may perhaps be useful in some respect, with regard to a particular end. But they do not mean to say that every useful thing as such may be classed among those that are honestum.
In Article 4, St Thomas also describes how, while temperance is a subjective part of honestas under its meaning of virtue, honestas is an integral part of temperance. This gives us a case study where we can look at the intrinsic beauty of temperance:
I answer that, As stated above (Article 2), honestas is a kind of spiritual beauty. Now the disgraceful is opposed to the beautiful: and opposites are most manifest of one another. Wherefore seemingly honestas belongs especially to temperance, since the latter repels that which is most disgraceful and unbecoming to man, namely animal lusts. Hence by its very name temperance is most significative of the good of reason to which it belongs to moderate and temper evil desires. Accordingly honestas, as being ascribed for a special reason to temperance, is reckoned as a part thereof, not as a subjective part, nor as an annexed virtue, but as an integral part or condition attaching thereto.
I have avoided using the term ‘happiness’ to translate eudaimonia or beatitude because in English, ‘happiness’ is usually used for a pervasive state of delight. But this is not what Aristotle or St Thomas mean by eudaimonia, felicitas (which in Latin had quite a broad meaning of prosperity, good fortune, fullness, etc.), or beatitudo. This delight is only a particular good not a complete good. It is still good and it follows a proper accident from the attainment of any good.
Some are under the erroneous impression that Aristotle and St Thomas merely say that bodily pleasures are not eudaimonia. However, St Thomas explicitly says (Prima Secundae Q.2 a.6) that, while most people associate the final end of man with bodily pleasures, there are in fact more powerful joys, by which he means spiritual delight, but that beatitude does not consist even in them. In Prima Secundae Q.4 a.1, he explains how delight does necessarily follow from the attainment of the complete good as a proper accident:
One thing may be necessary for another in four ways. First, as a preamble and preparation to it: thus instruction is necessary for science. Secondly, as perfecting it: thus the soul is necessary for the life of the body. Thirdly, as helping it from without: thus friends are necessary for some undertaking. Fourthly, as something attendant on it: thus we might say that heat is necessary for fire. And in this way delight is necessary for beatitude. For it is caused by the appetite being at rest in the good attained. Wherefore, since beatitude is nothing else but the attainment of the Sovereign Good, it cannot be without concomitant delight.
And in fact, St Thomas explains in the Question on honestas (see above), that bodily pleasures can be pursued for their own sake even when they are harmful or shameful. But this does not seem to me to be the case for spiritual delights. It seems to me that we can only take delight in a bonum honestum known by the intellect if we love it for its own sake first because of its own intrinsic beauty. To repeat something St Thomas says in that text on honestas (specifically in the reply to the second objection in article 3): “A thing is said to be honestum, if it is desired for its own sake by the rational appetite, which tends to that which is in accordance with reason: while a thing is said to be pleasant if it is desired for its own sake by the sensitive appetite.”
The bonum honestum is loved because it is good and beautiful in itself. It is also good for it to be cleaved to and delighted in.
Delight follows the possession of a bonum honestum because it is loved for its own sake. Because it is loved for its own sake, it is cleaved to for its own sake and it is necessarily delighted in as a result of beholding its intrinsic goodness.
Delight in a bonum honestum can itself be a bonum honestum. But possessing the bonum honestum is a better bonum honestum than delighting in it. Furthermore, the bonum honestum in itself is better than the activity by which it is possessed. For example, delight in a friendship is noble, but having the actual friendship is more noble, and the friendship itself is nobler still.
If our love is to correspond to reality, as it must if it is good and perfect, then we love first the good in itself before the possession of that good or delight in that possessed good.
For example, if we really love truth, then we love the truth more than possession of the truth (knowledge).
True Love of Common Goods
St Augustine makes a very interesting point using the example of truth:
The proud love their own opinion, and this not because it is true but because it is their own. Otherwise they would have as much love for the truth uttered by another: just as I love what they say when they say truth, not because it is theirs but because it is truth. Indeed, from the mere fact that it is true, it ceases to be theirs [alone]. But if they love it because it is true, then it is already both theirs and mine; it is the common property of all lovers of truth. … For Your truth is not mine or this man’s or that man’s; it belongs to all of us because You call us to share it in common, warning us most terribly not to possess it as our private property, lest we be deprived of it. Whoever claims for himself what You have given for the enjoyment of all, and wishes to have as his own what belongs to everyone, is driven from the wealth of all to his own poor wealth, that is, from truth to a lie. For “he who speaks a lie, speaks from his own” (Jn. 8:44) ~ Confessions 12.25
Truth is a bonum honestum which is loveable for its own sake because of its intrinsic beauty. Truth is also a common good which, when desired by a finite being as a merely private good, ceases to be what it is. One who rightly loves truth, orders himself to it, not it to himself.
God who is infinite goodness contains eminently all other truly good things. As for immaterial noble (honesta) common goods like truth, He is them eminently. We say that God is Truth itself, as we say He is Goodness itself and Being itself. Every that has being, is true, or is good, does so by created participation in what God has intrinsically in Himself.
Common goods are goods that are not diminished when they are shared. Hence, they are immaterial. Goods like this include Truth, Justice, Peace, rightly ordered Love, Sanctity, even Existence itself.
Goods that are noble and common are like stanzas in a beautiful poem. A pen is just a useful means to writing something down. If it were possible, you could simply bypass pens and project your thoughts onto the paper. However, a stanza is an integral means to a whole poem. If I love the spiritual beauty in Truth, Justice, Peace, Purity, Virtue in a proper and right ways, such that I order myself to them and love them as the common goods which they are, I am at least implicitly loving God in them. If I know, who God is, then will love all such goods in God, like the stanzas in the poem. If I only know a beautiful stanza, my love for it is not destroyed when I come to know the whole poem. However, now, the whole poem becomes primarily the object of my love, rather than the one stanza.
The Rebellion of the Devil
The devil did not order all noble common goods to the love of God, in whom they are in eminently (or even who He is eminently). Rather, he wanted to order everything to himself, a finite creature who is not God.
The devil ordered everything to the supreme love of himself above all things. Hence St Augustine speaks nobly about the two cities - love of self above all things and love of God above all things. The devil is the founder of the wicked city, which is a city of disorder, subversion, and rebellion against reality.
We can love God in our perfection or we can separate our perfection from God and seek to love it apart from Him, and therefore never truly be perfect, which is what the devil did.
St Thomas writes (Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 109):
Indeed, although natural inclination of the will is present in every volitional agent to will and to love its own perfection so that it cannot will the contrary of this, yet it is not so naturally implanted in the agent to so order its perfection to another end, that it cannot fail in regard to it, for the higher end is not proper to its nature, but to a higher nature. It is left, then, to the agent’s choice, to order his own proper perfection to a higher end.
Nota bene: St Thomas here does not mean (as should be clear from above) that it is not naturally good for man to love God above his own perfection considered as singular. What he means is that it is not naturally necessary for man to do so. (Nature and natural is often used with the meaning of unconscious undecided necessity). But it is naturally necessary for man to wish for eudaimonia in the most general sense and this necessarily includes at least a desire that pertains to oneself (this is the necessary baseline - for, as should be clear now, the bad man must love his singular good in the corrupt way in which he has construed it or the good man must also love his good, even though in a good man the desires for one’s singular good are ordered towards the Common Good and the Glory of God).
The beastly man, the oligarchic man, and the diabolical man
It seems to me that a man can condemn himself in three ways by a corrupt desire for the three different types of good. This basically corresponds to the three concupiscences of fallen man: the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life. Man can prefer bona delectabiles that refer to the body over the bona honesta that perfect and make beautiful his soul. He can prefer his private acquisition of bona utiles like riches to the common good. Or he can, by pride, prefer the bonum honestum that is his own natural goodness and beauty to Him who is goodness and beauty itself, refuse to refer his goodness to God, and wish for the ontological independence and infinite essential goodness and adoration from creatures that are proper to God alone. This is the sin of the devil. The corruption of the best is the worst.
True Love of the Common Good
Because the good itself is loved above the possession of it (and this in fact is necessary for possessing perfect goodness), the common good ought to be loved more than the private good. Because one loves the good in itself, one wants it to be diffused and shared in, including by themselves, but not limited to themselves. One wishes it to be the common good of all first and foremost for its own sake.
St Thomas, De Virtutibus, q. 2 a. 2 co:
But to love the good of any society involves a twofold consideration: first, the manner in which it is obtained; secondly, the manner in which it is preserved. But to love the good of any society so that it might be had or possessed, does not constitute the political good. Thus does a tyrant love the good of the state in order to dominate it, which is to love himself more than the state; for he desires this good for himself, not for the state. But to love the good of the state so that it might be preserved and defended, this is indeed to love the state, and this constitutes the political good. So much is this so, that men would expose themselves to dangers of death or neglect their own private good, in order to preserve or increase the good of the state. Therefore, to love the good in which the blessed participate so that it might be had or possessed does not make man well-disposed toward beatitude, because the wicked also desire this good. But to love that good for its own sake in order that it might remain and be made wide-spread, and that nothing might act against that good, this does dispose man well toward that society of the blessed. This is charity, which loves God for His own sake, and loves fellow-men who are capable of attaining beatitude as it loves itself; charity resists every hindrance both in itself and in others; charity can never exist with mortal sin, that obstacle to beatitude. Therefore it is clear that charity is not only a virtue, but even the most powerful of the virtues.
Another text is enlightening from ST Ia Q.19 a.2:
God wills not only Himself, but other things apart from Himself. This is clear from the comparison which we made above (Article 1). For natural things have a natural inclination not only towards their own proper good, to acquire it if not possessed, and, if possessed, to rest therein; but also to spread abroad their own good amongst others, so far as possible. Hence we see that every agent, in so far as it is perfect and in act, produces its like. It pertains, therefore, to the nature of the will to communicate as far as possible to others the good possessed; and especially does this pertain to the divine will, from which all perfection is derived in some kind of likeness. Hence, if natural things, in so far as they are perfect, communicate their good to others, much more does it appertain to the divine will to communicate by likeness its own good to others as much as possible. Thus, then, He wills both Himself to be, and other things to be; but Himself as the end, and other things as ordained to that end; inasmuch as it befits the divine goodness that other things should be partakers therein.
St Francis de Sales on the Love of Complacency for God
Our Love of Friendship with God, our Charity, includes the Love of Benevolence. We desire all external glory for God. But this is secondary to the Love of Complacency that we have for God. This is a more simple love. It is the love whereby we rejoice in the intrinsic goodness that God is in Himself. For God towards us, it is the other way round. He loves us first by willing us good with the Love of Benevolence and then, when He has made us good, He loves us with the Love of Complacency. This is all explained by St Francis de Sales beautifully and nobly in his Treatise on the Love of God. In that same work, this master contemplative of Divine Love describes wonderfully the Love of Complacency we ought to have for God:
Love, as we have said, is no other thing than the movement and outflowing of the heart towards good by means of the complacency which we take in it; so that complacency is the great motive of love, as love is the great movement of complacency.
Now this movement is practised towards God in this manner. We know by faith that the Divinity is an incomprehensible abyss of all perfection, sovereignly infinite in excellence and infinitely sovereign in goodness. This truth which faith teaches us we attentively consider by meditation, beholding that immensity of goods which are in God, either all together by assembling all the perfections, or in particular by considering his excellences one after another; for example, his all-power, his all-wisdom his all-goodness, his eternity, his infinity. Now when we have brought our understanding to be very attentive to the greatness of the goods that are in this Divine object, it is impossible that our will should not be touched with complacency in this good, and then we use the liberty and power which we have over ourselves, provoking our own heart to redouble and strengthen its first complacency by acts of approbation and rejoicing. "Oh!" says the devout soul then, "how beautiful art thou, my beloved, how beautiful art thou! Thou art all desirable, yea, thou art desire itself! Such is my beloved and he is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. O blessed be my God for ever because he is so good! Ah! whether I die or whether I live, too happy am I in knowing that my God is so rich in all goodness, his goodness so infinite, and his infinity so good!"
Thus approving the good which we see in God, and rejoicing in it, we make the act of love which is called complacency; for we please ourselves in the divine pleasure infinitely more than in our own, and it is this love which gave so much content to the Saints when they could recount the perfections of their well-beloved, and which caused them to declare with so much delight that God was God. Know ye, said they, that the Lord he is God. O God, my God, my God, thou art my God. I have said to the Lord: Thou art my God. Thou art the God of my heart, and my God is my portion for ever.
Conclusion
In loving God above all things, the common good above his private good, and his neighbour as himself, man conforms to the mind of God, who wills principally Himself, His goodness, and His glory, and necessarily ordains everything to this final end. This conformity and unity with the mind and will of God is in fact good for man, is is noble for man, it makes him beautiful. This ennobling and beatification of man glorifies God.
And we have known, and have believed the charity, which God hath to us. God is charity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16).